Northeast Pennsylvania is the present home of a new bitcoin experiment. Known as Nautilus, the experiment is about to go live online, and it’s hosted by a firm called Terawulf.
Nautilus Will Soon Be Online
Nautilus is a mining facility. At first glance, this doesn’t sound all that exciting given mining is something all crypto fans are used to hearing about. After all, mining is what gives birth to crypto units like bitcoin. However, what’s unique is that Nautilus is set to run on nuclear power. The project was first announced in 2021, and it took well over a year for it to reach full power capacity. Basically 1.6 quintillion hashes every second… That’s a lot.
The big clincher is Nautilus is not going to be powered by fossil fuels, something environmentalists and eco-friendly individuals have been complaining about for years. There have been many reports that claim bitcoin mining uses more energy than most developing countries. Thus, there is a firm belief that mining and related crypto activity could potentially bring the planet to its knees.
It also doesn’t help when industry heads such as Elon Musk back up such statements. About two years ago, Musk said that he was going to examine bitcoin being utilized as a payment tool for those aiming to purchase new Tesla vehicles. All seemed right with the world in crypto fans’ eyes. They said this is what bitcoin was all about, and it was on its way to achieving its initial goal of serving as the golden payment method.
Sadly, things ended before they could even begin, the main reason being that Musk was worried about the mining process and didn’t want to put Earth in trouble because he thought bitcoin was cool. He thus rescinded the decision and said he would only consider BTC use again if miners were willing to be more transparent about their energy sources.
Trying to Understand the Process Better
Terawulf co-founder, COO, and CTO Nazar Khan is confident in what he says the project can achieve. However, he did mention concerns regarding a potential clampdown of proof-of-work mining, which he says has politicians and regulators in an uproar since Ethereum engaged in the Merge last year. He says:
Once I started to understand how bitcoin mining worked, it was clear to me that efficient and economic bitcoin mining was heavily dependent on infrastructure and the cost of energy. Pick the name of a bitcoin miner and I’ve probably talked to them at some point, trying to find a way to work together. I said, ‘Hey, I know power, I know energy, let me find someone who knows bitcoin mining.’ It became very clear to me that the level of sophistication in the space around energy, energy procurement, and development was very low.
